At the risk of being flamed into oblivion, my favorite card is Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Now let me explain...
There's plenty of hate around Jace, both in terms of $$$ and power. Still though, I think it represents something we don't see as much of anymore, and something that I think people enjoy.
I like that Wizards decided to just go a little crazy and say "You know what? Screw it, we're going to blow it up and create the most powerful planeswalker the game has seen and probably will ever see. Three abilities? Pfft, give it four! Make ALL of them awesome!"
I feel like Wizards is afraid to create crazy cards anymore. How often do people look at some new powerful card and think "man, it's like they ran to the 1 yard line, stopped, and then said 'good enough!'" I like that they went crazy even if it meant banning the card in multiple formats. I like that they decided to make it the poster child of Magic in terms of artwork and power. I like that they revealed it a puzzle piece at a time, letting fans salivate over the abilities. "OMG, is that Brainstorm on a stick?" "Holy crap, he can unsummon too?!"
I think it meant something to the game in general, no matter how broken it was. It said that Wizards could still go a little nuts. It proved that the game could still be broken, resulting in the first Standard ban in a long time.
Love it or hate it, I feel like Jace, the Mind Sculptor is the first card printed in a long time that had the same notoriety and fame as the cards in the Power Nine.
- The Greendale Human Being
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Apr 3, 2013The Greendale Human Being posted a message on The Stack, Ability Resolution, and Checking ConditionsPosted in: The Greendale Human Being BlogQuote from SpikexNow, there is something which happened to me at a tourney which I dont understand. My opponent was playing restoration midrange and I was playing R/G Tron. I play Karn Liberated, knowing I have priority over his direct damage, I exile his only source of red mana - a Steam Vents. He "responds" by playing Lightning Bolt on my Karn - I told him I had priority, and he was confused so I called the judge. The judge said that my opponent could, indeed, add the bolt to the stack though it wouldnt resolve before Karn's ablity of exiling the Steam Vents did(the judge added that my opponent could also tap for red, float R, then bolt Karn when his ability had resolved. This I didnt appreciate becuase the judge isnt supposed to tell my oppenent his plays). This is what confuses me: If the bolt resolves before Karn' ability does, yet the cost of loyalty counters on Karn goes down to 3 because his ability is payed for wouldnt the bolt resolve first, since it was added second to the stack, Karn is at 3, hit for 3 then dies before his ability could resolve(since the targets have been altered as you descirbe in this entry)? This would mean that direct damage can kill planeswalkers before their prioritarian ability can even resolve making the whole rule about planeswlakers having priority completely moot and useless. In my opinion, the judge was wrong here, and my opponent couldnt cast lightning bolt, except by floating the R, the playing the bolt after the land was exiled. What are your thoughts on this?
The judge was indeed wrong and doesn't understand how the stack works.
In the situation you mentioned, your opponent can tap land targeting and add red, or even float it for that phase (remember mana empties between phases). At that point, Karn's ability has been added to the stack. If your opponent elects to cast a bolt, the bolt is on top of the stack (last in first out).
At that point, Bolt resolves first, killing Karn. However, that doesn't remove Karn's ability from the stack. All targets for the ability are still legal (the Steam Vents) and so the ability resolves because checking on resolution passes. The target hasn't been altered at all; it was and still is the Steam Vents. Karn doesn't need to be present for the ability to resolve.
Your opponent can keep that red mana floating until that phase ends. Once you enter either combat or the end phase it's gone though.
A simliar situation is true for abilities when creatures enter the battlefield. Say you play Vendilion Clique on your main phase. Clique's ETB ability goes on the stack. Your opponent may Bolt the Clique in response to the ability, but even with Clique gone the ability still resolves. -
May 28, 2011The Greendale Human Being posted a message on Pyromancer Ascension: Post-Banning/M12.If you've already cast a Volt Charge, if you have a PA on the field it would get a counter on the second Volt Charge and then a second when it resolves from the proliferate.Posted in: Terrapin Guts Blog
Staggershock and Volt Charge make for an active Ascension on their second cast. -
Mar 3, 2011The Greendale Human Being posted a message on Tezzerator 2.0Does Throne of Geth make sense in the Jace/Tezz/Koth variant?Posted in: NeoItems Blog
I'm thinking it can provide some extra backing in the form of:
- It can get Jace out of bolt/slag range if you brainstormed with him when he hit the field
- It can get Koth out of Galvanic Blast range if he's only at 4
- It can get Koth's ultimate to fire the second turn he's out
- It can get Tezz's ultimate to fire earlier/fire without losing him earlier (could be good if you need the life)
- It can pump the chalice
- It can be a 5/5 beater for Tezz
I think it *might* be worth using over the Opal since it can pump the chalice and keep Sphere of the Suns around longer. Contagion Clasp could also be good, but I think it's too slow for the aggro approach. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
It seems like they have a reasonable amount of hate with Relic, which seems like it's a little challenging to play around because we can overextend into it, but Ugin seems like it's just lights out; I can't see a way to win if he drops. Wurmcoil seems like it could be similarly challenging to deal with.
For Ugin do we just have to go off at instant speed instead of sorcery speed and then attack/Conflag him out of the way?
Also seconding the ban talk. As an Infect player, I thought my eyes were going to get stuck in a position of being rolled up at everyone losing their minds about how Become Immense was going to be banned.
It's really irritating that a deck doing well means BAN HAMMER INCOMING. It's a fault of both WotC and the player base, and the game could really do without it.
The biggest question I have so far is really around the mana base. It seems like there's a big dichotomy of a fetch vs fetchless mana base.
My gut instinct is that the fetch powered base is the safer option since you can go off at instant speed with Bloodghast, but then I've read writeups where people say "screw Anger of the Gods and Rest in Peace; we'll just rebuild and start over in those games."
I can't help but feel like you'll lose roughly the same amount of life as a Confluence/Brass base as with fetches and the ability to go off at your oppoent's end of second main seems like it's an opportunity that's too good to pass up.
I also noticed that at SCGMKE the decks seem a bit more slanted towards a fetchless base, but there are still a few fetch bases in there.
What am I missing? In people's experience is it really that easy to just play around the opposition and ignore sorcery speed threats?
I also think it depends on your meta. Some decks make infect a bye for the infect player and the same could be said for Eldrazi.
They're both really good decks though; I would say your happiness is the determining factor.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PucaTrade/comments/55u9fu/sweepstakes_psa_current_sweepstakes_is_only_for/
"Hey guys, can/should we do a sweepstakes to reduce points in the system?"
"Sure, just make sure we do it half cocked shooting from hip!"
"Not a problem."
Damn, way to do some work against Jund, Abzan CoCo and Abzan.
Anything you can share with us about those matchups since they're traditionally quite difficult for us?
It seems like it's creeping back into the running a little bit from what I can see.
It doesn't seem like it should be much worse than Jund, but I haven't played against it much.
https://pucatrade.com/sweepstakes
Maybe I'm being an alarmist, but this seems like another nail in the coffin. I really don't understand the motivation for this when you have a slew of people looking to cash out. Oh, I can dump all of my remaining points into a raffle, maybe win a dual land, and then never bother coming back to the site again because I'm at zero? Sure!
If their economy was strong, then give something like this a shot, but with the overwhelmingly negative attitude in the PucaTrade community this seems like you're offering a suicidal person a pile of explosives on which to lay and detonate.
EDIT: Ah, it's coming off the heels of this:
https://pucatrade.com/articles/2016/2016progress
They're trying to reduce the number of points they have at any given time in the system.
That's... interesting. I don't know how I feel about it. I suppose promoting scarcity of currency is probably an effective mechanism for instigating more trades, but the community is showing a significantly inflated sense of doubt in the market. I don't know how well those play together.
The 2-of Defiance in the board is a little surprising; I wonder what the motivation was there.
It seems like Infect might be growing a little in the meta; I think it had the 3rd highest presence at SCG Orlando and there were 4 Infect in the top 16 at this event. Given that, you'd think you'd really want Skite in the sideboard, but then again, he took first, so who knows.